To give you an idea of the shift (which is already forecasting DOOM for at least three North Carolina Democrats), here’s the old map:

The background on this is that when North Carolina gained a seat after the 2000 Census, a combination of the racial gerrymandering mandated by the Civil Rights Act, and an unusually large amount of partisan greed on the part of the then-Democratic controlled legislature, resulted in the embarrassingly unsubtle second map found above. Unfortunately for the Democrats, they had not particularly taken into account the possibility that in 2011 the Republicans would be in control of the legislature and have blood in their eye; they also did not consider that the Governor may not veto the redistricting results. As for legal challenges… if you look at the maps you’ll see that the 1st and 12th districts (both majority-minority districts) are largely unscathed. Personally, I find majority-minority districts to be racist as all get-out – the implication that African-American candidates need to be coddled is deeply offensive to me* – but I’m in the, as they say, minority on this one.

Bottom line: if the new map or one like it passes – and it’s hard to argue that this is not an improvement over the cynical monstrosity that preceded it – then four Democrats (Mike McIntyre, Brad Miller, Larry Kissell, Heath Shuler) are in varying-but-at-least-severe trouble. Which is, of course, an absolute tragedy.